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Q&A

Charting a New Course:
George Nelson and Science Education Reform

Bellingham, Washington—George "Pinky" Nelson is a veteran of three space flights who's spent 411 hours hurtling through the far reaches of the universe. But if you ask the former astronaut what his toughest mission has been, the answer is firmly earthbound. Glancing around his small corner office at Western Washington University, he confesses, "Actually this is the hardest thing I've ever tried to do—by far." This is overhauling how educators teach K-12 science and how universities prepare them for that job (see A Meeting of the Minds). The boyish-looking Nelson, who holds a doctorate in astronomy and directed Project 2061 for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, talked to Northwest Education Editor Rhonda Barton about the importance of effective science education.

From the time I was little kid—maybe four years old—I wanted to be an astronomer. It was genetic, so I don't expect students to be like me. My interest in education comes from going to lots of schools, seeing lots of kids, talking to lots of people, and seeing the impact of their ignorance on personal and political decisions. If our species is going to maintain its standard of living and survive, it's absolutely critically important that we have a foundation in science: just like it was critically important to know how to read at the turn of the 20th century. Prior to that, you didn't have to have a real understanding of learning or acquire new skills because you could still have a job for life. That just isn't true anymore. We don't know what to teach our kids to be productive 10 years from now because we don't know what jobs they'll do. We only know they won't be the same ones we have today. So, we need to teach people how to learn.

What can good science education accomplish that other subjects can't?

In schools, reading and writing tend to focus on the creative aspects—reading novels, developing expository materials, doing good creative writing—when in life, most of the reading and writing we do is not fiction. It's reading directions, writing instructions, and writing down ideas. In science, there's a big focus on communicating verbally and especially on communicating precisely in writing. That's an aspect that science demands. So, by doing good science, we can add to the language arts this component of learning to be precise. And you can't write precisely if you don't think precisely.

What about training the mind to question and observe?

That's a part of it: to develop these metacognitive skills, to say "I observe something, do I really understand what I saw? Does my mental model fit? Does it make sense? Do I have to revise what I think about something?" That's what science is all about. Those thinking skills are what we're trying to lead our teachers through so they know they need to do the same kind of thing with their students. A lot of people view science as just learning vocabulary, formulas, and facts. Certainly you have to do some of that, but that's a small part of understanding how the scientific enterprise works and how we learn about the world.

One of the goals of the North Cascades and Olympic Science Partnership is to reach all learners and help them succeed in challenging science curriculum that's aligned with state standards. How do you begin to achieve that lofty goal?

Slowly. I would claim today that 80 percent of the students who graduate from high school know almost nothing about science—probably a comparable percentage has similar math skills. Five years out of school, they will have forgotten every concept they learned. The 20 percent who do remember, I'm not so worried about—they're going to go on to college and do more work. But those who don't end up majoring in science or in engineering, the science they learned in high school—because it was a collection of facts or algorithms—will just fade away. They're going to fall back on their preconceptions. They aren't going to know why we have seasons, why we have phases of the moon, how we know the world is made up of atoms, or what evidence is. So, I'm really interested in curriculum that focuses on reaching all students—not just the top 20 percent, but the forgotten majority who we've kind of written off in terms of really learning.

Our work with these teachers is focused on identifying good curriculum and implementing it in a way that they're constantly monitoring the learning of all their students. As you said, it's a lofty goal, but I believe it's possible. Not tomorrow or the next day, but maybe many years down the road. It can't be done by individual teachers—that's why it's a partnership. We have to create these teams of players—the teachers in the schools, the university faculty, the communities—who are working together with the same notion. It's the good part of No Child Left Behind: We really don't want to leave any child behind. The community has to agree to that, and it has to do the hard work necessary to achieve that goal.

Given the advances in scientific knowledge and technology, how do we keep up or should we even worry about that?

Don't worry about it. What we really want to know is how does science work? What are some of the fundamental ideas? At the national level, we've got that down pretty good. It isn't necessary to know what's at the cutting edge. It's the same reason that we don't worry about what's at the cutting edge of novels in English today or what's at the cutting edge of thinking about history or linguistics. We're trying to give people the literacy core, the basic understanding that will allow them to read the newspaper, to appreciate an article about what's going on at the cutting edge, and to see if it makes sense or not. I know what's going on in my field of astronomy... barely. But I couldn't tell you what's at the cutting edge of geology or biology. I can read an article in the newspaper and appreciate what's going on. That's the level we want people to be at: to be able to understand statistical claims about drugs, politicians' arguments about environmental issues, or whatever to make an informed decision about their personal life.

So, do you think in 50 years, good science teaching will look like it does today?

Yeah. We'll have learned a lot more, so it will look different in that respect because we'll know more about how people learn, how to talk to people, and how to build good curriculum. Cognitive science has really been coming along in the last 20 years: We're starting to understand some things that are going to be enduring.

Read more about the North Cascades and Olympic Science Partnership at www.ncosp.smate.wwu.edu. The Web site includes a number of literature reviews on topics such as new teacher support, teachers as tutors, school leadership, and staff development.